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World champion Huston claims skateboarding's Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 has been a "long time coming"

By Liam Morgan at the Copper Box Arena on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London

Sunday, 27 May 2018

Reigning world champion Nyjah Huston believes skateboarding's Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020 has been a "long time coming" as he claimed the sport should have been introduced onto the programme much earlier.

Huston told insidethegames at the Street League Skateboarding London Pro Open here that the skateboarding events at the 2020 Olympics in the Japanese capital will be "the biggest contest we have seen in skating yet".

Skateboarding was added to Tokyo 2020 along with baseball/softball, karate, sport climbing and surfing by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2016.

It was not previously able to apply for inclusion as there was no recognised International Federation to govern it at the Games.

The IOC were keen to have the sport at the Olympics in a bid to appeal to a larger youth audience and critics claim its inclusion has been rushed.

A governance row which has divided rival bodies within the sport has dominated the lead-up to its first Olympic appearance, while only a small number of countries have a national governing body for skateboarding at this stage.

"It is about time skateboarding is in the Olympics - it has been a long time coming," said Huston.

"Skateboarding has been big enough for a while and should have been in there."

The 23-year-old American, one of the sport's household names who has won a seven Summer X Games street gold medals, also feels Olympic inclusion will help grow skateboarding in countries where it does not currently have a strong heritage.

"Being at the Games is helping the sport grow a lot," Huston, who was unable to compete at the event here due to injury, added.

"You are going to see skateboarding get bigger and a lot more skate parks are going to start popping up all around the world in other countries.

"I think it is going to open a lot of doors for skateboarding and the next generation of kids around the world."

About the author

Since joining insidethegames.biz, in 2015 Liam Morgan has covered a variety of international multi-sport events and conferences, including the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games and the Lillehammer 2016 Winter Youth Olympics. He also reported from the 2017 IOC Session in Lima and three editions of the FIFA Congress. He graduated from Southampton Solent University in 2014 with a BA First Class honours degree in Sports Journalism.

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Fact of the day

At the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Iranian judoka Arash Miresmaeili was disqualified for weighing in at nearly four pounds above the limit for his weight class of his under-66 kilograms match against an Israeli opponent Ehud Vaks in the first round. It was claimed Miresmaeili had gone on an eating binge to protest the International Olympic Committee's recognition of the state of Israel. Iran does not recognise the state of Israel, and Miresmaeili's actions won praise from high-ranking Iranian officials. Mohammad Khatami, the country's President at the time, was quoted as saying Miresmaili's actions would be "recorded in the history of Iranian glories". He was later awarded $125,000 by the Government - the same amount given to Olympic gold medallists.

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